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Photos of the aftermath of the 9/11/01 World Trade Center attack (back to top)
Sources: I took these photos on 9/19/01, walking down Broadway, about two blocks east of the World Trade Center.  al-Qaeda (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top) Founded by Osama Bin Laden around 1990 to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion and were trained by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, al-Qaeda has been described by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization whose goal is to "establish the Muslim state" throughout the world, overthrow Western-oriented governments in Muslim countries, and drive the United States and other Western powers from the Arabian peninsula. The organization was headquartered in the Sudan from the early 1990s until about 1996 but maintained offices in various parts of the world. In 1996, the organization relocated to Afghanistan. The group has a command and control structure including a majlis al shura (or consultation council) which discusses and approves major undertakings. It also has a military committee which considers and approves "military" operations. In 1999, the State Department estimated that al-Qaeda (sometimes spelled al-Qa'ida) may have several hundred to several thousand members. The group is financed largely by Bin Laden, who is said to have inherited $300 million as the son of a billionaire Saudi family. al-Qaeda conducted the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, that resulted in the deaths of at least 301 people. The group has also been linked to the deaths of U.S. military personnel serving in Somalia in October 1993 (an incident described in Mark Bowden's book Black Hawk Down) and several attempted terrorist operations, including the failed assassination of the Pope when visiting Manila in 1994, bombings of the United States and Israeli embassies in Asian countries in 1994, the mid-air bombing of a dozen U.S. international flights in 1995, and a plan to kill President Clinton in 1995. The group's name translates as the "base" or the "root." It has also been known as the Islamic Army, the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places, the Osama Bin Laden Network, the Osama Bin Laden Organization, Islamic Salvation Foundation, The Group for the Preservation of the Holy Sites. On November 4, 1998, Bin Laden was indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the African embassy bombings on charges of murdering U.S. nationals outside the United States, conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals outside the United States, and attacks on a federal facility resulting to death. He was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list on June 7, 1999, and the United States offered a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
Afghanistan (last updated April 24, 2002) (back to top) Even before the events of late 2001, Afghanistan had known political chaos and violence for almost three decades, centered around a decade-long Soviet invasion that ended in 1989 and left the country to even more years of civil war and tribal warfare. In 1996, the Taliban took control of the country and implemented a government based on an extreme form of Islamic interpretation. The Taliban was sanctioned by the international community for its harboring of terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden even before the September 11 attacks, and it was finally driven out of power in November 2001. Since the fall of the Taliban, the international community has begun to rebuild Afghanistan. In December 2001, the international community established an interim administration headed by Hamid Karzai. In June 2002, Afghan citizens will convene an emergency "loya jirga," chaired by former king Mohammad Zahir Shah, to decide constitutional matters and select the form of a transitional government. There are no plans to restore the monarchy. Slightly smaller than Texas in terms of land size, Afghanistan is located in the Near East at the crossroads between the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Central Asia. The country is largely Muslim (85 percent Sunni Muslim, 15 percent Shi'a) and has long been divided amongst ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Pashtun ethnic group (about 38 percent of the population). The country is extremely poor and its economy depends on basic agriculture; in recent years, however, its biggest trade has been as the world's largest illicit opium producer. Afghanistan has had a troubled time since the 1970s and especially since it was caught up in Cold War politics. For the past two decades, it has had the distinction of producing the world's largest-ever single refugee caseload each year. About a third of the country's population fled during the Soviet invasion, and though millions have returned since then, about 2.6 million refugees remained in exile in early 2000. The 40-year reign of Mohammad Zahir Shah, who took the throne as king when he was 19 years old after the assassination of his father, ended in 1973, when his cousin took power and established a short-lived republic. King Shah went to exile in Italy, staying there for the next 29 years until he finally returned in April 2002 to help create a new government for Afghanistan. The new republic that replaced King Shah lasted only a few years before it was itself overthrown in 1978, this time by a communist party. The Soviet Union then sent troops into Afghanistan in December 1979 to support the communist regime, thus beginning a decade-long struggle which ultimately emboldened the resistance (supported and trained by the United States and other countries) and sent about a third of the population fleeing the country as refugees. Negotiations to end the war culminated in the 1988 Geneva Accords, and the last Soviet troops withdrew in February 1989. The country then soon broke down into tribal warfare, which lasted for years and left a power vacuum that the Taliban filled in 1996. The Taliban, which literally means "religious students" and which refers to the educational background of the movement's leaders, controlled about 90 percent of the country at its peak. Taliban leadership, many of whom received training to fight against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, adhered to the Hanafi school of Sunii Islam and attended Deobandi-influenced seminaries in Pakistan; the Deobandi school seeks to purify Islam by discarding supposedly un-Islamic accretions to the faith and re-emphasizing the models established in the Koran and the customary practices of the Prophet Mohammed. The Taliban was ruled by Mullah Omar, Head of State and Commander of the Faithful, and a ruling council known as the Shura. The Taliban emerged as a power in 1994 and, helped by Pakistan, took the capital city of Kabul in September 1996. Overcoming the traditional segmentation of the various Pashtun tribes by emphasizing Islamism and targeting non-Pashtun ethnicities, the Taliban then imposed a strict list of regulations on the Afghan people and enforces these regulations through a religious police force under the control of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Suppression of Vice and through Islamic courts. These restrictions had their greatest impact on women. Upon taking power in 1996, the Taliban immediately forbade girls to go to school and banned women from working outside the home, which had far-reaching impacts on health care services and education; some of these restrictions were reportedly eased in 1999. The Taliban also imposed rigid lifestyle restrictions on women, restricting them to their homes unless accompanied by a close male relative and requiring them to wear a burqa (a garment covering the body from head to foot with a small, lace-covered opening for the eyes) or risk a beating. The Taliban also banned music, movies and television on religious grounds. In 1998, the Taliban prohibited television sets and satellite dishes in order to enforce the prohibition, though this regulation was reportedly not strictly enforced. Regulations covered many aspects of daily life, including the length of a man's beard. According to Taliban regulations, men must have beards extending longer than would a fist clamped at the base of his chin or face beatings or imprisonment for 10 days. The United Nations condemned the Taliban government several times, beginning shortly after it came to power. In particular, the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions and a military embargo against the country once the Taliban began supporting and harboring terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization. During the Taliban's rule, the United Nations continued to recognize the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the anti-Taliban movement. Isolated from the international community, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was just one of a handful of conservative Islamist states and was recognized by only three countries: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And even though Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was ruled by a fundamentalist Islamist government, there were some crucial distinctions between it and its neighbor, Iran. While both countries are fundamentalist Islam, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was largely Sunni Muslim and entirely under religious rule, whereas Iran is largely Shia Muslim and has a secular government that has some independence from the totalitarian religious structure. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the United States moved to attack al-Qaeda forces located in Afghanistan and to drive out the Taliban government that supported them. U.S. and British forces began air strikes in early October 2001, and began ground attacks later that month. By late November, the Taliban had lost control of Afghanistan's major cities to the Northern Alliance forces. In December 2001, Afghan leaders meeting in Germany signed an agreement to establish a broad-based, multi-ethnic, post-Taliban government, beginning with an interim administration headed by Pashtun leader Hamid Karzai and culminating with emergency council meetings chaired by the former king. Sources: CIA World Factbook entry on Afghanistan, available on-line here. Annual country reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Human Rights Watch, Crisis of Impunity: The role of Pakistan, Russia, and Iran in fueling the civil war, available on-line here. Annual reports by the U.S. Department of State on human rights practices and on international religious freedom, available through the department and its archives here. United Nations Security Council resolutions and reports regarding Afghanistan are available here. A U.S. State Department chronology from September to December 2001 covering U.S. activity in Afghanistan is on-line here. An April 11, 2002 special briefing on the rebuilding of Afghanistan is on-line here. Intelligence Failures and Reforms (last updated June 6, 2002) (back to top) The Bush administration began in late May and early June 2002 to propose and to actually implement major changes to how federal law-enforcement is structured and operates. The Department of Justice has already loosened restrictions on domestic investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has proposed shifting resources to counterterrorism efforts and hiring more specialized agents, and President George W. Bush has proposed creating a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to consolidate intelligence efforts now spread over as many as 100 agencies. These changes and efforts come as reports emerge of the missed signs and potential intelligence failures that could have warned of the September 11 attacks. For example, FBI agent Coleen Rowley in Minneapolis has written and has testified before Congress that her superiors hampered investigative efforts in the summer of 2001 into Zaccarias Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker (for more information on Moussaoui, go here). FBI superiors also reportedly rejected a July 2001 proposal by another agent, Kenneth J. Williams, to investigate American flight schools for Middle Eastern men training there. Furthermore, the FBI and CIA reportedly did not actively share information on the men who hijacked the flights involved in the September 11 attacks. On June 6, 2002, just as Congressional hearings began examining such intelligence failures, President Bush announced in a major public address that he would seek the creation of a new Cabinet-level agency that would consolidate and coordinate intelligence-gathering efforts. This agency would focus on coordinating the government's analysis of and response to terrorist threats. It would also encompass border security (thus encompassing the Coast Guard and the border functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service), infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness and response, and bioterrorism countermeasures. Both the FBI and the Department of Justice have proposed and even implemented other changes. In late May 2002, federal law-enforcement officials admitted that signals had been missed and announced major organizational changes and revised policies. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced on May 29, 2002 several major organizational changes to the FBI. First, the FBI would refocus its priorities so that protecting the United States from terrorist attack and foreign intelligence operations would take the highest priority. In terms of staff, he proposed increasing the number of agents dedicated to counterterrorism efforts by hiring new agents and by shifting 518 agents away from drugs, white-collar crime and violent crime efforts, with the vast majority coming from drug efforts (400 agents from anti-narcotics efforts, with 59 each from the other two areas). Mueller has also testified that he wants to accelerate a move within the FBI away from generalists to emphasize specialized experts. Other changes were announced in November 2001. In terms of investigatory capabilities, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced on May 30, 2002 new guidelines that loosen prior restrictions on domestic intelligence gathering. Under these guidelines, which are already in effect, federal agents are now allowed to visit any place and attend any event that is open to the public, though they are not allowed to retain any information unless it relates to criminal or terrorist activity and they are still bound by the Constitution and federal law. Agents can also now use on-line resources to the same degree as the public and can conduct wiretapping operations with less supervision than before. According to Ashcroft, these revised guidelines emphasize the FBI's mission of preventing terrorism, reduce "unnecessary procedural red tape," and allow the FBI to "draw proactively on all lawful sources of information." The FBI "cannot meet its paramount responsibility to prevent acts of terrorism if FBI agents are required, as they were in the past, to blind themselves to information that everyone else is free to see," he said on May 30. Nonetheless, the revisions have already been criticized by many, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Represent F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin). In a May 30 press release, the ACLU said the new guidelines reward the FBI's failure by restoring powers that were abused during the civil-rights era, when the FBI spied on activists such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In many ways, the Department of Justice has seen its powers expand in several ways since September 11. The USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law in October 2001, authorized new law-enforcement tools such as stronger powers to prevent money laundering and to detain non-citizens based on lower standards than citizens. In October, the Justice Department also published a regulation that authorizes prison officials to monitor communications between detainees and their lawyers without a court order. Mueller took office on September 4, 2001, just a week before the September 11 attacks. His predecessor was Louis Freeh, who served from 1993 to June 2001. Sources: President Bush's June 6, 2002 address is on-line here, and information on the proposed Department of Homeland Security is on-line here. Information on the FBI's reorganization effort is on-line here. The new DOJ guidelines released on May 30, 2002 are available on-line via the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy, on-line here, and Attorney General John Ashcroft's May 30 speech announcing them is on-line here. The ACLU's May 30 press release criticizing the new FBI guidelines is on-line here. Don Van Natta Jr. and David Johnston, Wary of risk, slow to adapt, F.B.I. stumbles in terror war, New York Times, June 2, 2002. Terrorism: A Survey (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top) Terrorism, as defined by federal law, means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by groups or agents other than a state, usually intended to influence an audience. The Federal Bureau of Investigation divides the terrorist threat into two broad categories, domestic and international. Between 1980 and 1999, the FBI recorded 327 incidents or suspected incidents of terrorism in the United States; 239 were attributed to domestic terrorists and 88 to international terrorists. In total, these acts resulted in the deaths of 205 people and the injury of thousands. The FBI identified some growing trends in terrorism: attacks are fewer but more destructive, interest in weapons of mass destruction is increasing, loosely affiliated extremists are becoming more of a threat, and animal rights and environmental extremists are causing more of a threat. Domestic terrorism is broken down into three categories:
Major Terrorist Acts against the United States or involving United States citizens (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top)
Terrorism Warnings (last updated March 3, 2003) (back to top) The risk of terrorist attack is now back to "elevated" after nearly three weeks at "high" alert. Bush administration officials announced on February 7, 2003 a "high" level of risk due to reports indicating "an increased likelihood" that al-Qaeda would attempt to attack Americans in or around the end of the Hajj, a Muslim religious period ending in mid-February 2003. Bush administration officials then announced on February 27 a return to an "elevated" threat level due to new intelligence and due to the passing of the Hajj. The country is thus on "orange" alert, according to an advisory system that was unveiled in March 2003. Under this system, red indicates the most severe risk, followed by orange, yellow, blue, and green. The threat level has generally been "yellow", or "elevated"; the Feb. 7, 2003 elevation in threat level is the first since a temporary elevation to "orange" around the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. 
Department of Homeland Security (last updated December 8, 2002) (back to top) The Department of Homeland Security, a new Cabinet-level department which aims to consolidate intelligence efforts previously spread over as many as 100 agencies, was established in November 2002. President George W. Bush began calling for the department's creation in June 2002 and has called it the most significant transformation of the federal government in decades; he has nominated Gov. Thomas Ridge as its first secretary. "Dozens of agencies charged with homeland security will now be located within one Cabinet department with the mandate and legal authority to protect our people. America will be better able to respond to any future attacks, to reduce our vulnerability and, most important, prevent the terrorists from taking innocent American lives," Bush said in signing the Homeland Security Act into law on November 25, 2002. The new department will focus on coordinating the government's analysis of and response to terrorist threats. It will also encompass border security (thus encompassing the Coast Guard and the border functions of the Immigration and Naturalization Service), infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness and response, and bioterrorism countermeasures. The new department "will also end a great deal of duplication and overlapping responsibilities," Bush said on November 25. "Our objective is to spend less on administrators in offices and more on working agents in the field – less on overhead and more on protecting our neighborhoods and borders and waters and skies from terrorists." The House of Representatives passed the bill establishing the new department in July 2002 with a 295-132 vote. The Senate passed a similar bill on November 19, 2002 with a 90-9 vote. Sources: The White House has information on the new Department of Homeland Security on-line here. President George W. Bush's November 25, 2002 remarks upon signing the Homeland Security Act into law are on-line here. Recent Antiterrorism Efforts by the United States and the United Nations (last updated 9/25/01) (back to top)
Foreign Terrorist Organizations (last updated November 23, 2001) (back to top) The U.S. Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism designates foreign terrorist organizations every two years. In October 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell re-certified the designation of 26 of the 28 foreign terrorist organizations designated two years earlier, and combined two previously designated groups (Kahane Chai and Kach) into one. One group, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was added in 2000 and its designation is not to expire until 2002.
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